Here's a simple one: You are not morally justified in stealing from the mafia, or from the RIAA, or even from the worst mass murderer there is. At *best*, you're engaging in vigilantism, more likely you're just another rioter carting off your neighbor's TV set.
Actually, what you think is so cut and dry isn't. What if you steal his gun? What if you do it while he's tying up the rest of your family? You are still technically stealing. And engaging in vigilanteism. Most people would argue that these actions are very easily morally justified.
For music we are talking about copyright infringement, not theft. If we view the RIAA as a protection racket, extracting money from people unnecessarily (with today's technology they really aren't necessary), it's not that hard to justify violating their ill-begotten rights.
There is a famous quote that answers this question rather well: "Two wrongs don't make a right."
The issue is more complex than that. Quoting an adage as self-proving may be sufficient for a toddler, but any serious moral discussion requires more depth than that.
I can say "lightning never strikes twice" and most people will agree with that statement reflexively. 'Turns out it's not true. Quoting an adage proves nothing.
I see. Because they are abusing their position it gives you the right to rip them off. Good show. Well done. What a commendable lack of moral values.
If I feel that you are somehow doing something I don't like does that give me the right to abuse you?
Let's try an look at this rationally:
I can do one of three things:
Not listen to any RIAA music.
Listen to RIAA music and pay them for it.
Listen to RIAA music and not pay for it.
Option 1 is unacceptible to any music lover. Too much of our national musical history is currently owned by the RIAA.
Option 2 encourages their practices. As long as they can make profit with their cartel & protection scheme, they will.
This leaves Option 3. Morally, this response makes the most sense. Even though you imply it does, Option 3 does not amount to "abusing" the RIAA. That argument is like arguing that failure to pay the mob their protection money is the equivalent of vigilante justice. Yes, they're not getting money they'd like to have, but you're not actually taking any money from them either. They're still as well of as they would be if you didn't exist at all.
Well, then support INDEPENDENT MUSIC. Musicians don't have to sign with a record label that is a member of RIAA. I agree that the RIAA is a cartel, but we've got to expect the musicians to shed the golden shackles and do what's right too.
Right, you have a very good point here, it's also important to recognize that the RIAA currently owns a large amount of our national heritage. While new artists should be encouraged not to sign with the RIAA, the works of Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and a very large number of other groups that are an important part of our history should not be ignored or neglected.
No, I've never been prosecuted. I didn't advocate people turning themselves in. However, if I did get caught doing something illegal, I wouldn't expect any sympathy, just as I have no sympathy for those who have been caught.
This implies a belief that all current laws are just and moral. Since laws change over time, your own moral beliefs are going to come into conflict with the law eventually.
That, or you don't believe that anyone deserves sympathy for anything "bad" that happens to them.
Either way, it doesn't seem like a very sensible viewpoint to me.
I have no sympathy for those who are sued (assuming reasonable penalties). They break the law, they get caught, they get punished. I don't see anything wrong with that.
I assume you been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for every crime you've ever comitted then? You did turn yourself in every time right?
Oh? What's that? Only other people who break the law are stinking criminals?
Yeah. Because ever law is morally just as long as it's not being applied to you, right?
It is illegal to obtain copyrighted material from sources that are not authorized to distribute it - especially knowingly, but knowledge of the illegal act is not neccassary. The buck stops there. Whether or not increased music "sharing" benefits the music industry, or if a lack of good music is to blame for falling profits, or the economy is the cause, etc, is completely irrelevant. Stop stealing.
Price fixing is also illegal.
So are cartels.
Welcome to the real world where people break the law, and only the poor or unlucky deal with the consequences.
To me, this is like asking if minivans will destroy the market for sports cars.
Yes, they technically do the same thing, but the are not interchangable. Maybe you'll flip-flop over which one to buy, but at the end of the day, the market for both is there.
Number portability isn't an insurmountable technical problem. I have no idea where you got such a crazy idea. It works fine in Europe, and here as well for land lines.
Do you want your phone number to be arbitrarily locked to a certain provider? Even when you're not moving?!
..maybe I don't get it, but how are RFID tags a violation of your privacy. They have an effective range of a few feet. They are the next logical evolution up from barcodes. Are we that paranoid and afraid of technology? Somebody please enlighten me...
First off, how wide is your average doorway?
A few feet.
Second, these tags have unique ID numbers.
Combine these two bits of information, an you can easily see how simple it would be to develop a system which tracks people based on the RFID tags embedded in their clothing.
And yes, these tags will be embedded in your clothing. Every see those anti-shopliting tags that a lot of stores put on clothing now. Notice how deliberately difficult to remove they are? RFID tags aren't just going to replace barcodes, they're going to replace those inventory control tags too. This means they are going to be VERY difficult to remove.
Only if you care about such things.
My point was that most Windows/Mac users are perfectly content to leave the desktop with the default color scheme because we just want to run apps.
Even if you don't use it, it's an advantage. Better braking on a car is a good example of this. Yeah, you may never need it, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing to have.
As for "growing out of" window manager configurability, I would say it's much more likely that you just got used to the status quo, rather than decided "being able to make the computer do more things == bad". Growing out of implies moving on to something better, but you haven't. You might get used to driving a Geo Metro eventually, after owning a Corvette, but that doesn't make them equally good.
Technically, you found a way. I'll give you that much. But it's only a half-assed way that I was already aware of and don't consider a real solution. It's not a real scan-convertor and it doesn't support 1920 x 1080p, or even 720p.
Now take the remaining $80 and find a computer with similar specs to an Xbox:) Then you'll have proven your case.
I think the best way to gauge the real split for desktop OS's is browser impressions for each platform. This way it realistically measures desktops in use and not shipped units or servers. It also catches people who use multiple desktop OS's and should accurately track the split between themm
Acutally this method is extremely inaccurate. Many alernative OS users have their browser set to lie about what browser/OS combination they're useing so the can access certain sites. There are even versions of Opera that lie about their user agent by default. It is also important to note that you're limiting yourself to (for the most part) english speakers. Part or Linux's huge success has been in other countries, especially in those where MS has no plans to produced a localised version of their OS.
Linux zealots may look at that and say well 2% is miniscule with the rate of growth that won't take long, etc.
Lame, flamebait. Linux is the fastest growing desktop OS. Any person with a firm grasp on reality can understand that this implies Linux with surpass Apple's market share.
Not to mention the fact that the experience of OS X on the desktop kicks ass on KDE or GNOME. I love Linux as a server OS, but I moved to Mac for the desktop. In my mind, there's not much incentive to go the other way.
Have you ever used KDE?
It kicks the crap out of ever other desktop I've ever used. Period. Not everone wants the dumbed-down user experience that MacOS offers.
And it's free.
In my mind, there's not much incentive to go the other way.
When I sit down at a Linux system, my ability to do things is limited only by my hardware, and my own abilities. It don't need any permission from MS or Apple to do things, and I don't have to send them any money.
And that procedure also has another interesting side effect:
It turns you laptop into a desktop.
Yeah, MacOS support 3-button mice. It's just a one button mouse with two of the buttons on the keyboard. Silly IMO. And who needs a scroll-wheel anyways? It's not like they're amazingly useful, even to the most inexperienced of computer users.
Apple made a bad decision keeping the 1 button mouse. The problem is bigger than just plugging in a new mouse. It shows a problem with their philosophy. Plugging in a new mouse won't change that.
B.S. Apple hardware is expensive, and always will be. It simple economics. Apple has a monopoly on Apple hardware. If you compare a market without competition, to one with competition, guess which one is going to have better prices.
You can try and B.S. about how the Apple is cheaper because you can buy a more expensive PC, but the reality is quite a different story. You can claim a dual xeon costs $5,000 but it doesn't. Not even from Dell. And you're also ignoring AMD.
Apple doesn't sell the bottom of the line machines for $500, for which you'd be better off getting an XBOX anyway, but in tehir price ranges they have much higher performance than the competition.
Wrong, and wrong. An Xbox is not a good deal for a desktop workstation, and Apple hardware does not have better performance than other, similarly-priced hardware.
Thus, Linux on Mac is no problem-- Apple's even putting Linux APIs (I don't know which) into Panther to make porting easier.
That makes it easier to run Linux apps on MacOS. It does not help with running actual Linux on a Mac.
Not flaming you at all, just pointing this out as the myth that apples computers are expensive is really old and really annoying.
It's not a myth, it's reality. It can be explained with simple economics (high quantity produced => lower price per unit, monopoly price, etc), or benchmarks (spec.org). Either way is going to prove my argument.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying Apple hardware is crap, I'm saying it's more expensive price/performance wise. In 2002, a Pontiac Trans Am was the fastest (straight-line) car under $30,000. If you would rather have a slower BMW/Honda/Subaru/Whatever, fine, there are reasons you might want to do that. The reality will still be that the Trans Am is faster.
The power of the computer is not in the desktop, but in the applications. The desktop is a means to an end.
You can say that about the applications as well. They are just a "means to an end". Or the whole compter. It's just a mean for getting work done. Why should it even matter?
In reality, your OS, windowing system, WM, shell, apps, drivers, etc are all an important part of getting your work done.
You have to admit the grandparent is right. Under Linux, he has control of his desktop, and that is an advantage. OSX is still a proprietary system, and Apple is suing anyone who even makes their stuff look like aqua.
Riiigght, because no town has ever set their speed limits unnecessarily low.
Not all laws are safety-motivated, and not everyone speeding is doing it for the thrill of breaking the law.
Sometimes traffic laws are just plain stupid. If I stuck a red light on a stretch of road without any turns or intersetions in the middle of nowhere, would you stop? How long would you wait there?
Speed limits are VERY heavily abused by local g'ovts as a source of revenue. To that end, they often make their speed limits unbearably low. Speed limits aren't aggressively enforced because they are too low. If they started ticketing everyone who went 1 MPH over the speed limit, they would have one very PO'ed public on their hands.
What are you talking about? These technologies (not this one, but similar ones) are in my car right now
You don't have radar or line following in your car right now (which is what we're talking about).
Do you believe that your experience with RADAR makes you more qualified to speak about these technologies than the guys actively developing it?
I believe that my grasp of technology allows me to state that this technology is not ready to be used on real roads any time soon. If you could ask these Honda engineers, they'd probably tell you the same thing. For some reason you have this crazy notion in your head that this system is finished and the only kinks to be worked out are minor.
The bad ones are BOTH, palestinian terrorist AND Sharon's people (I'm not including the soldiers that HAVE to follow orders or the Israel's people)
I whole heatedly agree with this statement.
Saddam being in power was bad FROM THE FIRST DAY he was put by US government.
And this one too. I hope the US gives up it's traddition of propping up brutal dictators, and keeps to its words regarding democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. I know odds aren't so good though.
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Here's a simple one: You are not morally justified in stealing from the mafia, or from the RIAA, or even from the worst mass murderer there is. At *best*, you're engaging in vigilantism, more likely you're just another rioter carting off your neighbor's TV set.
Actually, what you think is so cut and dry isn't. What if you steal his gun? What if you do it while he's tying up the rest of your family? You are still technically stealing. And engaging in vigilanteism. Most people would argue that these actions are very easily morally justified.
For music we are talking about copyright infringement, not theft. If we view the RIAA as a protection racket, extracting money from people unnecessarily (with today's technology they really aren't necessary), it's not that hard to justify violating their ill-begotten rights.
There is a famous quote that answers this question rather well: "Two wrongs don't make a right."
The issue is more complex than that. Quoting an adage as self-proving may be sufficient for a toddler, but any serious moral discussion requires more depth than that.
I can say "lightning never strikes twice" and most people will agree with that statement reflexively. 'Turns out it's not true. Quoting an adage proves nothing.
Let's try an look at this rationally:
I can do one of three things:
Option 1 is unacceptible to any music lover. Too much of our national musical history is currently owned by the RIAA.
Option 2 encourages their practices. As long as they can make profit with their cartel & protection scheme, they will.
This leaves Option 3. Morally, this response makes the most sense. Even though you imply it does, Option 3 does not amount to "abusing" the RIAA. That argument is like arguing that failure to pay the mob their protection money is the equivalent of vigilante justice. Yes, they're not getting money they'd like to have, but you're not actually taking any money from them either. They're still as well of as they would be if you didn't exist at all.
Well, then support INDEPENDENT MUSIC. Musicians don't have to sign with a record label that is a member of RIAA. I agree that the RIAA is a cartel, but we've got to expect the musicians to shed the golden shackles and do what's right too.
Right, you have a very good point here, it's also important to recognize that the RIAA currently owns a large amount of our national heritage. While new artists should be encouraged not to sign with the RIAA, the works of Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and a very large number of other groups that are an important part of our history should not be ignored or neglected.
No, I've never been prosecuted. I didn't advocate people turning themselves in. However, if I did get caught doing something illegal, I wouldn't expect any sympathy, just as I have no sympathy for those who have been caught.
This implies a belief that all current laws are just and moral. Since laws change over time, your own moral beliefs are going to come into conflict with the law eventually.
That, or you don't believe that anyone deserves sympathy for anything "bad" that happens to them.
Either way, it doesn't seem like a very sensible viewpoint to me.
I have no sympathy for those who are sued (assuming reasonable penalties). They break the law, they get caught, they get punished. I don't see anything wrong with that.
I assume you been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for every crime you've ever comitted then? You did turn yourself in every time right?
Oh? What's that? Only other people who break the law are stinking criminals?
Yeah. Because ever law is morally just as long as it's not being applied to you, right?
As if that somehow makes stealing copyrighted music OK? Stop redirecting the argument.
Is stealing from the mafia ok? It's a legitimate moral question.
Maybe it would be easier for you if the world was black-and-white, but that's not the case.
It is illegal to obtain copyrighted material from sources that are not authorized to distribute it - especially knowingly, but knowledge of the illegal act is not neccassary. The buck stops there. Whether or not increased music "sharing" benefits the music industry, or if a lack of good music is to blame for falling profits, or the economy is the cause, etc, is completely irrelevant. Stop stealing.
Price fixing is also illegal.
So are cartels.
Welcome to the real world where people break the law, and only the poor or unlucky deal with the consequences.
To me, this is like asking if minivans will destroy the market for sports cars.
Yes, they technically do the same thing, but the are not interchangable. Maybe you'll flip-flop over which one to buy, but at the end of the day, the market for both is there.
Who is your provider?
Telephone network != Internet
Number portability isn't an insurmountable technical problem. I have no idea where you got such a crazy idea. It works fine in Europe, and here as well for land lines.
Do you want your phone number to be arbitrarily locked to a certain provider? Even when you're not moving?!
WRONG!
Your comment itself is self contradictory.
RFID tags do broadcast, in response to the presence of a reader (which provides pwoer to the tags).
See my other comment for a simple explanation or how easy it will be for RFID tags to be misused.
..maybe I don't get it, but how are RFID tags a violation of your privacy. They have an effective range of a few feet. They are the next logical evolution up from barcodes. Are we that paranoid and afraid of technology? Somebody please enlighten me...
First off, how wide is your average doorway?
A few feet.
Second, these tags have unique ID numbers.
Combine these two bits of information, an you can easily see how simple it would be to develop a system which tracks people based on the RFID tags embedded in their clothing.
And yes, these tags will be embedded in your clothing. Every see those anti-shopliting tags that a lot of stores put on clothing now. Notice how deliberately difficult to remove they are? RFID tags aren't just going to replace barcodes, they're going to replace those inventory control tags too. This means they are going to be VERY difficult to remove.
Understand why people are getting worried now?
Only if you care about such things. My point was that most Windows/Mac users are perfectly content to leave the desktop with the default color scheme because we just want to run apps.
Even if you don't use it, it's an advantage. Better braking on a car is a good example of this. Yeah, you may never need it, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing to have.
As for "growing out of" window manager configurability, I would say it's much more likely that you just got used to the status quo, rather than decided "being able to make the computer do more things == bad". Growing out of implies moving on to something better, but you haven't. You might get used to driving a Geo Metro eventually, after owning a Corvette, but that doesn't make them equally good.
Technically, you found a way. I'll give you that much. But it's only a half-assed way that I was already aware of and don't consider a real solution. It's not a real scan-convertor and it doesn't support 1920 x 1080p, or even 720p.
:) Then you'll have proven your case.
Now take the remaining $80 and find a computer with similar specs to an Xbox
Lindows PC's don't have component video output.
Try to find a way to get component video output from your PC for less than $200. I bet you can't.
I think the best way to gauge the real split for desktop OS's is browser impressions for each platform. This way it realistically measures desktops in use and not shipped units or servers. It also catches people who use multiple desktop OS's and should accurately track the split between themm
Acutally this method is extremely inaccurate. Many alernative OS users have their browser set to lie about what browser/OS combination they're useing so the can access certain sites. There are even versions of Opera that lie about their user agent by default. It is also important to note that you're limiting yourself to (for the most part) english speakers. Part or Linux's huge success has been in other countries, especially in those where MS has no plans to produced a localised version of their OS.
Linux zealots may look at that and say well 2% is miniscule with the rate of growth that won't take long, etc.
Lame, flamebait. Linux is the fastest growing desktop OS. Any person with a firm grasp on reality can understand that this implies Linux with surpass Apple's market share.
Not to mention the fact that the experience of OS X on the desktop kicks ass on KDE or GNOME. I love Linux as a server OS, but I moved to Mac for the desktop. In my mind, there's not much incentive to go the other way.
Have you ever used KDE?
It kicks the crap out of ever other desktop I've ever used. Period. Not everone wants the dumbed-down user experience that MacOS offers.
And it's free.
In my mind, there's not much incentive to go the other way.
When I sit down at a Linux system, my ability to do things is limited only by my hardware, and my own abilities. It don't need any permission from MS or Apple to do things, and I don't have to send them any money.
And that procedure also has another interesting side effect:
It turns you laptop into a desktop.
Yeah, MacOS support 3-button mice. It's just a one button mouse with two of the buttons on the keyboard. Silly IMO. And who needs a scroll-wheel anyways? It's not like they're amazingly useful, even to the most inexperienced of computer users.
Apple made a bad decision keeping the 1 button mouse. The problem is bigger than just plugging in a new mouse. It shows a problem with their philosophy. Plugging in a new mouse won't change that.
Apple hardware is Cheap!
B.S. Apple hardware is expensive, and always will be. It simple economics. Apple has a monopoly on Apple hardware. If you compare a market without competition, to one with competition, guess which one is going to have better prices.
You can try and B.S. about how the Apple is cheaper because you can buy a more expensive PC, but the reality is quite a different story. You can claim a dual xeon costs $5,000 but it doesn't. Not even from Dell. And you're also ignoring AMD.
Apple doesn't sell the bottom of the line machines for $500, for which you'd be better off getting an XBOX anyway, but in tehir price ranges they have much higher performance than the competition.
Wrong, and wrong. An Xbox is not a good deal for a desktop workstation, and Apple hardware does not have better performance than other, similarly-priced hardware.
Thus, Linux on Mac is no problem-- Apple's even putting Linux APIs (I don't know which) into Panther to make porting easier.
That makes it easier to run Linux apps on MacOS. It does not help with running actual Linux on a Mac.
Not flaming you at all, just pointing this out as the myth that apples computers are expensive is really old and really annoying.
It's not a myth, it's reality. It can be explained with simple economics (high quantity produced => lower price per unit, monopoly price, etc), or benchmarks (spec.org). Either way is going to prove my argument.
Cognative disonance at its best: "I paid more for it so it must be better"
Disclaimer: I'm not saying Apple hardware is crap, I'm saying it's more expensive price/performance wise. In 2002, a Pontiac Trans Am was the fastest (straight-line) car under $30,000. If you would rather have a slower BMW/Honda/Subaru/Whatever, fine, there are reasons you might want to do that. The reality will still be that the Trans Am is faster.
The power of the computer is not in the desktop, but in the applications. The desktop is a means to an end.
You can say that about the applications as well. They are just a "means to an end". Or the whole compter. It's just a mean for getting work done. Why should it even matter?
In reality, your OS, windowing system, WM, shell, apps, drivers, etc are all an important part of getting your work done.
You have to admit the grandparent is right. Under Linux, he has control of his desktop, and that is an advantage. OSX is still a proprietary system, and Apple is suing anyone who even makes their stuff look like aqua.
Riiigght, because no town has ever set their speed limits unnecessarily low.
Not all laws are safety-motivated, and not everyone speeding is doing it for the thrill of breaking the law.
Sometimes traffic laws are just plain stupid. If I stuck a red light on a stretch of road without any turns or intersetions in the middle of nowhere, would you stop? How long would you wait there?
Speed limits are VERY heavily abused by local g'ovts as a source of revenue. To that end, they often make their speed limits unbearably low. Speed limits aren't aggressively enforced because they are too low. If they started ticketing everyone who went 1 MPH over the speed limit, they would have one very PO'ed public on their hands.
It's a shame this can't be modded higher than 5.
It's would be great if we could come up with a few goods ways to deter the RIAA from behaving this way.
What are you talking about? These technologies (not this one, but similar ones) are in my car right now
You don't have radar or line following in your car right now (which is what we're talking about).
Do you believe that your experience with RADAR makes you more qualified to speak about these technologies than the guys actively developing it?
I believe that my grasp of technology allows me to state that this technology is not ready to be used on real roads any time soon. If you could ask these Honda engineers, they'd probably tell you the same thing. For some reason you have this crazy notion in your head that this system is finished and the only kinks to be worked out are minor.
You're being WAY too optimistic.
The bad ones are BOTH, palestinian terrorist AND Sharon's people (I'm not including the soldiers that HAVE to follow orders or the Israel's people)
I whole heatedly agree with this statement.
Saddam being in power was bad FROM THE FIRST DAY he was put by US government.
And this one too. I hope the US gives up it's traddition of propping up brutal dictators, and keeps to its words regarding democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. I know odds aren't so good though.